Gary Gilmour's Eyes

Idly leafing through the record books, Fantasy Bob discovers that today is the birthday of Gary Gilmour, who played 15 Tests for Australia in the mid 1970s.  For those grasping to remember - he was a left-arm seam bowling all rounder.  FB remembers him particularly from his performance during the 1975 World Cup.  In the semi-final against England at Headingley he took 6-14 - 6 of the top seven in the order. He was the first bowler to take 6 wickets in an ODI.  This is no longer an exceptional feat, it has been matched many times. The best wicket haul is currently 8 - hoovered up by Chaminda Vaas against Zimbabwe in 2001.  Gilmour's innings of 28 chasing a total of 94 was also critical to the Australian cause. 

Gilmour liked Headingley (or it liked him)  - in the Ashes Test that same summer he took 6-85 in the first innings and three more in the second innings.  But he was in and out of the Test team as injury and fitness problems together with strong competition for places told against him.  His Test career was over in 1977.  He died in 2014.

FB memory is stirred because at one time he thought Gilmour was the only cricketer who had inspired a punk rock song - or any song for that matter. The song was released by the Adverts in 1977 and made it to number 18 in the poptastic charts.  For a couple of weeks FB was happy in the thought that cricket and punk rock has established a positive creative bond.  He looked forward to future hits - might the Sex Pistols celebrate the Forward Defensive in a froth of spittle and invective?  Might Stiff Little Fingers reveal that their name originated from over-zealous practice of off spin?  Souxsie and the Banshees might sing the praises of Mike Denness.

Of course it was not to be. FB was totally mistaken. There was never such a link.  He had heard a spelling error.  The song was nothing to do with Gilmour.  Looking Through Gary Gilmore's Eyes  was about double murderer Gary Gilmore, the first person to be executed in the USA for over 10 years following a Supreme Court ruling on death penalty statutes.  Gilmore had requested his eyes be donated to medical science.  The song imagines a patient waking following receiving these eyes in transplant.  He is not happy.  A typical subject for a pop song.

But what if the song had been about Gary Gilmour - for example seeing his 6-14 through his eyes?  Now that might have been worth listening to.